This report is focused around Lost and Found data using the intakes and outcomes data received for 2019 and 2020. Its goal is to reflect everything we could learn about L&F from the available data and highlight things that would be useful to show but some/all data required for them are missing.

Report Structure

  1. KPIs: data points that indicate how good the shelter is doing on on L&F. They have numeric goals associated with them.
  2. Supporting data: data points that aren’t a goal themselves but serve as a proxy for improving a goal. For example, the method of RTH is not a performance indicator, but it helps identifying how RTHs take place. The number of strays found per ZIP code is not a metric to improve, but it shows where most strays are coming from to guide resource allocation.
  3. Data status: the state of the data received from the shelter, highlighting missing pieces and potential areas for improvement.
  4. Extra metrics: some ideas for additional L&F metrics and the data points they require.

Scroll down or use the table of contents on the left to navigate throughout the document. Most sections contain multiple tabs showing different facets of a data type. Most plots are interactive, meaning they include tooltips and allow hiding and showing parts and zooming in and out. If something went wrong, look for the house icon in the top right corner of each figure to reset.

KPIs

Yearly RTH Rates by Species

This section provides an overview of the RTH rate per year divided by species. RTH Rate is calculated as the portion of returned animals that came in as strays out of stray animals. Normally, we also exclude neonate cats, but age group was not easily available in the data supplied.

Overall RTH Rate

This table covers all strays and RTHs. For both cats and dogs, these rates are extremely high compared to other HASS shelters.

Species Year Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat 2019 965 84 0.09
Cat 2020 786 78 0.10
Dog 2019 3352 1866 0.56
Dog 2020 2011 1173 0.58
Other 2019 500 9 0.02
Other 2020 614 18 0.03

Field RTH Rate

This one only counts animals who came in as strays from the field (using subtype ‘FIELD’). These are then split by RTH method between field (using src_outcome_subtype ‘FIELD’), shelter (all other values), and unknowns (missing/null).

Field RTH for cats are unsurprisingly rare. For dogs, rates remain the same across 2019 and 2020, with returns from the shelters being strikingly high.

Species Year Field_Strays RTH_Subtype Field_RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat 2019 128 Field Return 3 0.02
Cat 2019 128 Shelter Return 7 0.05
Cat 2019 128 Unknown 3 0.02
Cat 2020 143 Field Return 1 0.01
Cat 2020 143 Shelter Return 15 0.10
Dog 2019 1090 Field Return 266 0.24
Dog 2019 1090 Shelter Return 506 0.46
Dog 2019 1090 Unknown 13 0.01
Dog 2020 763 Field Return 201 0.26
Dog 2020 763 Shelter Return 356 0.47
Dog 2020 763 Unknown 25 0.03

Shelter RTH Rate by Species

Excluding animals coming in from the field. Again, very high shelter RTO rates.

Species Year OTC_Strays Shelter_RTH RTH_Rate
Cat 2019 837 71 0.08
Cat 2020 643 62 0.10
Dog 2019 2262 1081 0.48
Dog 2020 1248 591 0.47
Other 2019 153 3 0.02
Other 2020 91 1 0.01

RTH Over Time

These three time series show the RTH rate per month, to show whether there were times with particularly high or low rates as well as the overall trajectory.

Overall RTH

Steadily, impressively high.

Field RTH (Dogs)

This is the same figure, but only counting field strays, and showing only dogs due to cats’ low numbers. The different lines split the rate of return by Field RTH or in-shelter RTH. RTH dogs with missing subtypes were included in the Shelter category.

Interesting pattern around when the pandemic first hit with two months of peak shelter returns and low field returns, which have since then balanced again.

Shelter RTH

This figure only counts strays who did not come from the field. Steadily high.

Stray Intakes

This section shows the number of stray intakes over time, as well as the breakdown of strays by field/shelter intake.

Stray Intakes by Month

Stray Intake Subtypes

Money Saved by RTH

This could be another useful metrics to reflect the benefits of RTH over other outcome types. It takes into account three components:

  1. The number of stray intakes with RTH outcome.
  2. The daily cost of care.
  3. The average difference in length of stay (in days) between strays with RTH outcomes and all other strays. This is shown in the table below – roughly 9 days for dogs and 6 for cats.

There were 1866 strays who got RTH in 2019 and 1173 in 2020. Assuming 30$ cost of daily care per dog, and given the length-of-stay differences, We can estimate that return-to-homes saved Denver Animal Shelter \(1866*30*12=\$671,760\) in 2019 and \(1173*12*30=\$422,280\) in 2020.

Of course, that is a pretty simplistic calculation. This can be made more nuanced by differentiating field/shelter returns and incorporating the costs associated with them, if relevant.

Species Outcome Count Average_Length_Of_Stay
Cat Other Outcomes 1161 14.11
Cat RTO 162 3.43
Dog Other Outcomes 1838 14.02
Dog RTO 3039 1.80

Supporting Data

Stray Intake and RTH By Found ZIP

The following maps show stray intake and RTH rate by ZIP codes to highlight geographical patterns. The first and second tab are similar to previous metrics; the third tab, RTH Gap, shows the number of strays who were not returned home per ZIP code.

Note: geographical data is often skewed towards the shelter’s ZIP code when its address/ZIP code is inserted by default. Usually, we would go over the crossing address and remove animals that have it listed as the shelter, but it was not done yet for this data – could be done if relevant.

Stray Intake

RTH Rate

The one ZIP code further from Tuscon stands out – other than that, most areas are roughly similar.

RTH Gap

This combines the other two tabs to highlight where most additional RTH potential exists. As the RTH rate is uniformly high across the city, the areas with more stray intakes stand out.

RTH Method

I noted you have an ‘Office’ vs ‘Email’ values for outcome subtypes for RTH, so here is the breakdown of these subtypes (excluding field).

Year Outcome_Subtype N
2019 Office 1425
2019 Email 231
2019 Null 16
2019 Shelter 7
2020 Office 832
2020 Email 201
2020 Null 27

Data Status

  1. Frequently missing values:

    • 1891 dogs had no ZIP code listed.
    • Finder’s zip code was not sent.
    • Outcome geographic data was not sent.

  2. Intake subtype has 10 values assigned to less than 10 animals, could be removed to simplify.

  3. Outcome subtype - the presence of ways to indicate how a return was achieved stands out. Here too there are multiple values that are rarely in use.

Extra Metrics

Other things we could show if we had the data for it:

  1. Exact distances traveled by lost dogs from home, if home address was collected for successful RTH.
  2. Prevalence of microchips across town (for example, are there areas from which more animals come in without chips?) and the RTH rates for animals found with/without chips.
  3. Reclaim fees (could be a yes/no to track fee waiving).
  4. Number of public found reports and successful RTH by the public (if this data is accessible to the shelter; these two would allow showing $ saved by public RTH).